RECENT INVESTIGATIONS2015 | 2017

CHINA | Narcotics

SHANGHAI (AP) — For a few thousand dollars, Chinese companies offer to export a powerful chemical that has been killing unsuspecting drug users and is so lethal that it presents a potential terrorism threat, an Associated Press investigation has found.The AP identified 12 Chinese businesses that said they would export the chemical — a synthetic opioid known as carfentanil — to the United States, Canada, the United

CHINA | Money laundering

ASHDOD, Israel (AP) — Gilbert Chikli was rolling in money, stolen from some of the world's biggest corporations. His targets: Accenture. Disney. American Express. In less than two years, he made off with at least 6.1 million euros from France alone.But he had a problem. He couldn't spend the money. A tangle of banking rules designed to stop con men like him stood between Chikli

CHINA | Counterfeiting

SHANGHAI (AP) — The woman called herself Flaming Lee, an English name she picked when she was 10 years old, long before she got into the dirty business of counterfeit goods. Her job as a private investigator sometimes took her to client meetings at Dubai's seven-star Burj Al Arab hotel.

CHINA | Money laundering

FLORENCE, Italy (AP) — Police in Florence wondered where all the money was going. Italy's economy was heading off a cliff, but its Chinatowns were booming. Luxury cars snaked past Chinese betting parlors and garment factories that hummed into the night. Chinese immigrants were buying up Italian coffee bars and real estate. But their prosperity was not reflected in local tax records. "What do they do with the money?" said Pietro Suchan,

PREVIOUS INVESTIGATIONS2008 | 2012

INDIA | Microfinance

MUMBAI (AP) -- First they were stripped of their utensils, furniture, mobile phones, televisions, ration cards and heirloom gold jewelry. Then, some of them drank pesticide. One woman threw herself in a pond. Another jumped into a well with her children. Sometimes, the debt collectors watched nearby. More than 200 poor, debt-ridden residents of Andhra Pradesh killed themselves in late 2010, according to media reports compiled

ASIA | Social

(NEWSWEEK) - Some of the world's leading computer makers don't want you to know about Local Technic Industry. It's a typical Malaysian company, one of many small makers of the cast-aluminum bodies for hard-disk drives used in just about every name-brand machine on the market. But that's precisely the problem: it's a typical Malaysian company.